Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Stacked defensive front had Decker 'salivating'

The New York Jets ran all over the Miami Dolphins early Monday night, to the tune of more than 200 yards in the first half alone.

However, the Dolphins caught on after the mid-game break, loading up the defensive front all second half and daring the Jets to finally let quarterback Geno Smith air it out.

But the Jets never took the dare. And then they lost, again. This time 16-13.

"In those situations, you salivate as receivers to get those one-on-one opportunities, to go downfield and make a play and make them back off a little bit so you can continue the running game," Jets receiver Eric Decker told NJ.com after the game. "You've got to have that complementary passing game with the way we're running.

"As receivers, you selfishly want those chances. We didn't get as many as maybe we thought we wanted. That's the coordinator seeing the game and trying to call the best game he can."

Smith completed just seven of 13 passes with a game-sealing pick. Decker had just two receptions. Meanwhile, the Jets ran the ball 49 times in the game.

Granted, the Dolphins' rushers were all over Smith on the few instances he did drop back, but the extraordinarily conservative offensive game plan proved New York's staff has little to no confidence in Smith--especially considering Decker had single coverage against a reserve back for most of the night.

"I'm not the guy in charge. He's going to call the way he sees the game," Decker said. "But you'd think the way we run the football, yes, we've got to still have a good passing game to be successful and to win."

Smith did throw a couple incomplete passes to Decker early on--which could be credited to the receiver as much, if not more so, than the quarterback. Still, the lack of Decker's involvement in the game plan is alarming given the rather large contract he signed this offseason.